This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

I'm making monthly Science Summary infographics based on this list. More information in the talk-page post here.

I'm also making German versions of these images and created the two German articles (with a different structure that has 3 subsections for each month like those infographics and lots of redlinks) for 2019 and 2020 (there's a RfD for those now so they might get deleted soon). The images and these articles might also be relevant to some ways this list could potentially be improved in the future.

Links and stats for the English version:

Month	Image & sources	Clicks
January	Reddit post with sources
February	Reddit post with sources
March	Reddit post with sources
April	Reddit post with sources	145,331 views on imgur
May	Reddit post with sources
June	Reddit post with sources
July

• Monthly email newsletter

Thanks to everyone contributing to this list.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 23:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Is there some reason why the images aren't located right next to the entries? Some are above and some below their entries. I guess this should be fixed for all years.

I suggest adding them after the bullet point of an entry like so:

* [[File:SARS-CoV-2 without background.png|thumb|right|200px|31 January: Scientists report an overview of the China [[coronavirus]] ([[2019-nCoV]]) [[2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak|outbreak]].<ref name="NYT-20200131"/><ref name="CDC-20200130" /><ref name="WHO-20200130" />]]31 January – Scientists report [...]

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 23:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

It's a consequence of how images are included in articles in general. Add too many and they move down. -- mfb ( talk) 23:45, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I'd suggest making it a table then. This would also have some other advantages beyond images being next to their entries and not overflowing to the next month's section. But I guess there should be a separate section for it - so let's discuss that below.

Here's how it looks when all the images are included at the top of the section and here's how it looks when they're right next to their entries as suggested.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 00:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

5 Feb/CRISPR-Cas12a-based gene editing system

In the source for the 5 February/CRISPR-Cas12a-based gene editing system item it says:

"Few works have demonstrated this much control in human cells," said Qi, whose lab has applied for a provisional patent on their Cas12 technology. "Sensing many signals at once means greater precision in identifying a disease state, and greater safety in administering a therapy. We see this kind of circuit control playing a bigger role in treatments in the future.

Is this the first successful implementation of a CRISPR-based gene editing system that can sense and be regulated by many signals at once? Or do those "few other works" include similar systems?

I think it would be appropriate to categorize this item as Category-1 but I'm not sure if it meets the high level of "progress within a field or research question of varying usefulness/..." / "practicable usefulness" / "importance" criteria for that category.

Does somebody here know how unprecedented / significant this is? (Anything from links to reports on the most similar studies or links to some expert opinions on this development or sourced arguments / personal insights with or without professional background would be useful.)
And if not: what place would you suggest to ask others about this?

This section could also include other discussions for such categorizations.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 16:18, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I suggest three new categories or tags / topics for items of this list once it's converted to a table: warnings, vindicated warnings and nonvindicated warnings. We could try to retroactively add warnings which were signed by a large number of scientists and especially studies that include explicit warnings and were reported about (and of course studies that include warnings and were signed by many scientists).

I think these are types of entries that people are interested in in such timelines when reading about past events - especially once the list is well searchable and categories and/or tags such as these would help with that. They could also include studies with projections of anything that's commonly regarded to be problematic.

Allowing for proper table-entry-categories that are easily filterable would require changes to Wikimedia software.

In terms of the category a warning would constitute a reference to a significant risk. For warnings signed by scientists instead of studies which were reported on / that meet the general inclusion criteria I think they should have been signed by a significant share/number of scientists either worldwide or within a field or by a large number of very successful scientists.

Entries to include

• Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Reemerging Infection, a conclusion of the study:
  

  The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb. The possibility of the reemergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore the need for preparedness should not be ignored.

• Some items of the list would also get one of these categories (entries can have multiple categories): for example the entry about a potential landslide by Volcano Tungurahua and the 28 January entry on biodiversity.

You could also suggest items to include here. This list isn't only for items for the 2020 article.

Please <strike></strike> items here once you or somebody else added them to the lists.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 21:54, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I still don't like the idea to make a table out of it, please don't do that unless you have larger support for it. -- mfb ( talk) 07:58, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay. It needs to be discussed more first anyway. I'll wait for others to comment on it and will expand the example in that section first so you can see how the list would look like as a table. It's a bit problematic with the current Wikimedia software as the width would be larger than the horizontal space so you'd have to scroll sideways on most screens to see more columns than date, description and image. I also replied to your comment above.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 18:17, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

How to deal with them? I think they should be included in a page called "{year} in science". But often they can't be pinpointed to a single day.

Examples for meta-developments are:

• Scientists for Future
• Scientists call for reform on rankings and indices of science journals
• Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on science and technology:
  The pandemic may have improved scientific communication or established new forms of it. For instance a lot of data is being released on preprint servers and is getting dissected on social Internet platforms and sometimes in the media before entering formal peer review. Scientists are reviewing, editing, analyzing and publishing manuscripts and data at record speeds and in large numbers. This intense communication may have allowed an unusual level of collaboration and efficiency among scientists. [1] (The text should be revised or extended.)

Maybe there should be a new section for such developments? Even if the list gets converted to a table by which we could add a "Topic" or "Category" called e.g. "Meta" they usually can't be pinpointed to a day but can only be documented properly from the entire year's frame of reference.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 19:46, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Improvements to the Wikimedia software could improve support for tables and thereby resolve the problem of #Why aren't the images located next to their entries? and allow for more images to be added. Visual imagery helps people better understand things and is of interest to many readers. See #Should the list be converted into a table?.

One item of February is about a study whose main result is a visualization of a quantum mechanical process. This visualization could easily be made into an animation and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. It's the item of 25 February on " Tracking the Dynamics of an Ideal Quantum Measurement" which is licensed under "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license". Could somebody please put the 4 frames into an animation, upload it to Commons and add it here?

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 14:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

There could be lists for specific categories of new findings in separate sections of the article or in separate articles. They could also be included in the main list once it has been converted to a table with categories/tags of findings and the capability to hide entries of specific types manually and by default. I'll list a few examples here:

• New biomarkers for diseases. For example: "Discovery of new biomarker in blood could lead to early test for Alzheimer's disease"
• Timeline of quantum computing
• 2020 in archaeology and a few other articles of Category:2020 in science

This would have many advantages such as better tracking specific fields of research, topic-related sorting, filtering, etc. and making the main list shorter. However it's not always easily possible to split it from the list: many studies are relevant to multiple fields of application (e.g. see Timeline of senescence research) - which is why tags/categories would usually be preferable.

For example theoretically one could transclude entries from History of quantum computing and add the tag or category "Quantum computing" and hide them by default in the table (or at least have them in a separate section of the table, not the upper part of the table) so that the table isn't overrepresenting developments in QC and only, from time to time, picks one very significant development to e.g. not be hidden by default.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 15:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Please do not create a table, or lists, or any other large-scale changes. It will just complicate things, dissuade people from adding entries, and be harder to maintain. This page has worked absolutely fine, for years, in its current format. We have an "Awards" section for discoveries or advances that are particularly notable, e.g. Nobel Prizes, so if you want to do something with that, then fine. But the main entries in each month should be kept in their current format. Wjfox2005 ( talk) 13:03, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, I created the talk page entry above to discuss this and not to somehow announce an upcoming conversion into a table. The section title ("Should the list be converted into a table") is even phrased as a question so I think that should be clear enough. And as written there, there are still some issues with the Wikimedia software which would need to be solved before this could be done. Namely, making such tables well-readable on mobile. There are probably also some other issues but this would probably be the main one. Maybe the "once it has been converted to a table with categories/tags of findings" above made it appear as if I was expecting this change to be carried out soon: it's just meant to show some more advantages of doing so and refers to the possibility of this happening e.g. years from now.

These are good points for why not to convert it into a table at least for now. I think it could be made so that it's not much harder to add entries to it or that it dissuades people from adding entries (again, probably via improvements to the Wikimedia software). Just having a table column for e.g. tags and categories doesn't mean that they have to be filled by editors who would like to add new entries. It would indeed necessitate a little bit more maintenance-work as extra fields for data would of course require more work to be populated.

I agree that the page has worked fine for years. I would like to help improve it nevertheless. Success and effectiveness of the page are relative. For example the page was never very comprehensive: it just listed entries editors of the page happen to have come across and found to be worthy of addition while missing entries on some very major discoveries. This could be changed by routinely adding entries as outlined in another section and would make the page more meaningful by serving as/becoming some sort of overview of current science like some sort of sensor which is more likely to pick up all of the most major discoveries (and like some sort of sensemaking-process which integrates the new findings with current knowledge). Imo the pageviews and usefulness to both editors and science-interested people could be improved. I hoped to make more people interested in this page and to somewhat extend its reach via the Science Summary images.

Anyways, I won't change the layout or alike without discussing it first – no need to worry about that. As of right now, I only add entries for last month (with the exception of some rare, proofreading-like edit-corrections to entries of the current month) so everything should be almost exactly like before for the latest month-section.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 14:19, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Also adding some content to the Awards section is a good call. I suggest populating that section via transclusions. This would, for the most part, also require changes to the Wikimedia software. I think the best main way to add content there would be via transclusions for rows of tables like the 2019 row at List of Nobel laureates in Physics#Laureates.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 12:22, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for clarifying. Maybe it's something we could think about for the longer term, and if perhaps the Wikimedia software will improve, as you've suggested. My concern is that people would make mistakes/typos when altering tables, and possibly corrupt the layout. These year-in-science pages contain a very large number of entries, so it would need careful attention and a very dedicated team of contributors. Also, various other issues would arise, e.g. In terms of filtering/dropdowns, certain entries might cover multiple subjects – a new solar panel material, for example, might be considered both nanotechnology and energy-related, so I wonder how that would be handled. Wjfox2005 ( talk) 14:39, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good point - it's relatively hard to edit tables with the source-editor. Nevertheless there aren't so many new editors editing this article anyway even if it's not a table, it's made easy by the visual editor, the benefits may outweigh this drawback and we may add the template for a new row as a comment like this:

<!--to add a new entry remove this line

|-

|style="min-width: 110px;" | date || style="width: 60%; min-width: 700px;" | description || (image) || (field of research) || || ||

to add a new entry remove this line-->

Many other articles still work well after their lists got converted to tables and afaik usually mostly considered the benefits to having a table. Furthermore, maybe adding table-entries in wiki syntax could also be made easier via changes to the software - for example maybe one could add a + button that shows when hovering over tables (maybe only when logged in) which when clicked opens the wikitext editor with automatically something like this being shown:

|style="min-width: 110px;" | Date || style="width: 60%; min-width: 700px;" | Description || Image || Research field || Topic || Lead by || Category

The column contents would automatically be the column-headers, the styles would get copied from the other rows (e.g. the first row) and it would only show this in a section-editor-view and not the whole table.

I'll probably propose some Wikimedia software changes later and then link these requests here. They wouldn't be useful for this article only.

Tags/categories/fields of research/topics would allow adding multiple tags as shown in the example table above - filtering all entries tagged with nanotechnology would also hide your example-entry. That's also a good point as one might only want to filter entries for energy-unrelated nanotechnology or so. I would suggest for it to have the "Research fields" Energy (or Renewable-Energy) and Nanotechnology-application. This way one could better distinguish between developments in Nanotechnology in general (items which would probably be added to a Timeline of nanotechnology) and specific applications of nanotechnology. If the item is more about demonstrating a novel method to develop nanotechnology and only chose something energy-related as a way to demonstrate its usefulness it would get "Nanotechnology" (or "Nanotechnology-design") as a third Research field. And of course there would also be the topics/tags-column by one could filter as well. One could use different combinations of tags and categories to filter the items similar to PetScan. This would also allow creating some dynamic timelines for specific topics or research fields, potentially interactive, somewhat graphical ones like Histopedia shows (albeit not very well implemented). By also adding categories (e.g. C1,C2,C3 as described above) would allow configuring different resolutions for these timelines and e.g. only show the most important developments within the field by only showing e.g. C1 items for the selected research field. These categories could also be used for filtering and I'd suggest showing all C1 and C2 items by default and auto-hiding all C3 ones and maybe some additional tags like all -application ones where it's only about a new or improved technology which hasn't yet been built into a) a finished device which b) has been shown to be very useful (there could also be buttons to easily un/hide specific topics which are e.g. likely to be not as interesting to the reader or very numerous).

All of these things would best be decided as it goes. Sorry for the long text and thanks for your input - as said these are some good points.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 12:22, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

• H dibaryon.jpg

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 13:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

There are too many images for May 2020. I'm going to remove a couple, to leave space for June. Hope that's okay. Wjfox2005 ( talk) 13:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

This section is for a list of entries editors plan to include in the article or think are important for other editors to include.

Month unclear (done)
Open-source ventilator, this spans over multiple months / there are many different developments; I added a link to it to the See also section CERN also created an open licensed ventilator, it was reported in April and is currently not included in the list linked above. This should be added to the Open-source ventilator article instead.

Month unclear (0)

January (done)

January (5)

Evidence of proteins, chromosomes and chemical markers of DNA in exceptionally preserved dinosaur cartilage, [2] [3] Four glial cells regulate ER stress resistance and longevity via neuropeptide signaling in C. elegans, [4] Improvement of cognitive and motor performance with mitotherapy in aged mice on Mitotherapy Xenobots: [5], [6] Gravity and the non-linear growth of structure in the Carnegie-Spitzer-IMACS Redshift Survey, [7]

February (done)

February (8)

Astrophysical limits on very light axion-like particles from Chandra grating spectroscopy of NGC 1275, [8], [9] on string theory/ axions "The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the privately-funded SETI Institute announced an agreement to collaborate on new systems to add SETI capabilities to radio telescopes operated by NRAO. The first project will develop a system to piggyback on the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) that will provide data to a state-of-the-art technosignature search system." "The new ethernet interface will be able to access raw data from each antenna, routing it through new, more flexible signal processing software to search for technosignatures in real-time." Preindustrial 14CH4 indicates greater anthropogenic fossil CH4 emissions "Study indicates human fossil methane emissions have been underestimated by up to 40%" "Immune cells edited with CRISPR/Cas9 to fight cancer seem to be safe and long-lasting, a small safety test of the cells in three cancer patients at the University of Pennsylvania shows." ( CRISPR-engineered T cells in patients with refractory cancer) ( Combining Photocatalysis and Optical Fiber Technology toward Improved Microreactor Design for Hydrogen Generation with Metallic Nanoparticles) [10] Scientists' warning to humanity on insect extinctions, Solutions for humanity on how to conserve insects [11] Power generation from ambient humidity using protein nanowires, [12], relevant to Bacterial nanowires, like an entry for April it used Geobacter sulfurreducens ( Nanoparticles can make home refrigeration more accessible for low-income households on this study on a R134a replacement, reported in June)

March (done)

SETI@home going into hibernation, [13], [14] Attribution of the Australian bushfire risk to anthropogenic climate change, [15] Doctors use gene editing tool Crispr inside body for first time CRISPR–Cas12b enables efficient plant genome engineering, [16] [17] Satellite animation shows air pollution in China and Italy clearing amid coronavirus lockdowns Updates on SARS-CoV-2 potential treatments including hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir: e.g. Breakthrough: Chloroquine Phosphate Has Shown Apparent Efficacy in Treatment of COVID-19 Associated Pneumonia in Clinical Studies, Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19, ... e.g. Hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro and Of chloroquine and COVID-19 and Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial (with a note that D. Trump tweeted about it) - see also: [18] The upcoming publication of a study reported on in February (maybe there should also be an entry for that in February and/or for this study), reported here: " Pangolins Are Suspected as a Potential Coronavirus Host" Experimental demonstration of memory-enhanced quantum communication, [19] Hummingbird-sized dinosaur from the Cretaceous period of Myanmar, [20] [21]

March (6)

( Multiplexed CRISPR technologies for gene editing and transcriptional regulation) Likely won't be included by me but maybe somebody else can add them: "Gargantuan chaotic gravitational three-body systems and their irreversibility to the Planck length" [22] and "Evidence for broken time-reversal symmetry in a topological superconductor" [23]. They were both published on 23 March. One assumption seems to be that their black hole simulation is accurate. Quantum principle of relativity [24] "randomness that appears in non-relativistic quantum theory tacitly respects relativity, for example, it makes instantaneous signaling impossible. Here, we argue that this is because the special theory of relativity can itself account for such a random behavior. We show that the full mathematical structure of the Lorentz transformation, the one which includes the superluminal part, implies the emergence of non-deterministic dynamics, together with complex probability amplitudes and multiple trajectories. This indicates that the connections between the two seemingly different theories are deeper and more subtle than previously thought." I think this would be a very good Category-2 entry for April but I don't sufficiently understand it to add it to the list. Maybe somebody can add it within the next few days - most likely it would be included in the Science Summary image for April in that case. Edit: moved to March as it was published on 24 March. Dephasingless Laser Wakefield Acceleration [25], [26] Plate-nanolattices at the theoretical limit of stiffness and strength [27] Manipulation of a spider peptide toxin alters its affinity for lipid bilayers and potency and selectivity for voltage-gated sodium channel subtype 1.7, "Our study found that a mini-protein in tarantula venom from the Chinese bird spider, known as Huwentoxin-IV, binds to pain receptors in the body. "By using a three-pronged approach in our drug design that incorporates the mini-protein, its receptor and the surrounding membrane from the spider venom, we've altered this mini-protein resulting in greater potency and specificity for specific pain receptors., Huwentoxin#Huwentoxin-IV

April (done)

April (2)
Psychedelic compound from magic mushrooms produced in yeast [28], there was an entry about making bacteria produce psilocybin in 2019 There could be an update on the ANITA events with this study: [29] (" Study provides new explanation for neutrino anomalies in Antarctica" [30])

May (done)

Proteomics of SARS-CoV-2-infected host cells reveals therapy targets [31] To catch an interstellar visitor, use a solar-powered space slingshot [32] The news reported as e.g. " NASA scientists detect evidence of parallel universe where time runs backward" and originally in April " We may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time" [33] [34]. The first version of the preprint was published in January. It was published in March. If nobody else adds it, I will add it. But I do hope that others will add more items including this one. We'd also need to decide to which month to add this to. January, March, April or May? By the current logic it would be January but I don't think there were any reports about it then. Afaik April had the first report about it but it wasn't particularly popular and was paywalled. In May there were many reports about it and it became (substantially more) popular. It could also be added to multiple months somehow. The paper: " A search for IceCube events in the direction of ANITA neutrino candidates". From the paper: "These new limits, in conjunction with the inconsistency ofisotropic flux interpretations, leave no room for an astrophysical interpretation of the AAE in the context of the StandardModel for time windows as short as 10^3s. However, it has been shown that these events can be explained using physics beyond the Standard Model, as many models suggest that the AAE lend support for axionic dark matter, sterile neutrinos, supersymmetry, or heavy dark matter [...]. Many of these models [...] can be constrained by this nonobservation at IceCube." Currently I think it would best be added to January with a shorter, second entry referencing it in May. Update: I think it should only be added to January, maybe there could be an update in June (see below) Even with people staying in, carbon dioxide is breaking records Carbon emissions fall 17% worldwide under coronavirus lockdowns, study finds An objective Bayesian analysis of life’s early start and our late arrival, [35], [36]

May (3)
( Vitamin D levels appear to play role in COVID-19 mortality rates; it's a preprint) More info on different SARS-CoV-2 strains [37] [38] (" Team develops online atlas of human immunome for precision medicine")

June (done)
Study finds that patterns formed by spiral galaxies show that the universe may have a defined structure presented at the 236th American Astronomical Society meeting in June 2020 [39] Astronomers have found a planet like Earth orbiting a star like the sun: KOI-456.04 Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction [40] [41]

June (2)
( NYT Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker) ( A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with ‘lock-down’ in managing the COVID-19 pandemic [42], [43])

July (done)

July (0)

I'm using cases around entries if I'm not sure whether I'll add them, or whether they should be added. In general I only add items which a) I b) at some point c) considered either to be at least Category-2 items per the criteria below to the list above and to the article or at least a notable, good Category-3 entry of only a short sentence or so. I encourage other editors to comment on what they think about the entries, especially the ones in the list above in cases.

Please move items into the (done) section/template if you or somebody else added them to the list and increase the number of items if you add suggestions.

Note: sometimes reports come out only long after the study has been published or at least only the month after. The items are added to the months when the study was publicized so sometimes the report might have been to late for early inclusion.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 23:51, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
09:56, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
18:23, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
21:14, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
14:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
15:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
10:49, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
09:14, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
09:39, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
10:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
12:22, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
22:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
23:00, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
12:07, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
15:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
16:44, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 23:36, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

The relativity one should get more attention before we add it here. This looks like some obscure pet project of the authors to me. Phys.org will report about everything, this doesn't indicate notability. -- mfb ( talk) 11:47, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it probably needs somebody – or preferably multiple people – who sufficiently understand/s it and can describe it in a way that also makes its notability clear enough. I'm not sure why it looks like "some obscure pet project of the authors" to you and what that entails for you for its notability. It's about topics of large interest – mainly how to reconcile quantum mechanics and special relativity. This is comparable to the topic of dark matter and that's probably relevant to your claim of it being "obscure". I think it would be very strange if found to be true. As somebody commented on this: "And ironically, this seemingly exotic hypothesis points toward elegant simplicity in the solution".

There are also some other sources reporting about it. Apparently it has "20751 Total downloads" which are a lot if those weren't bots and if it's not an error or something similar. On phys.org it has gotten almost 2000 shares which are quite many. Both indicate a sufficient popularity – this doesn't strengthen the study in any way: it just indicates that a) many people are interested in it b) many people have read about it. Both are further reasons for why the study is at least somewhat notable.

I have asked about this at the talk page of Relativistic quantum mechanics.

I won't add it to the list and with the talk page post there I consider it done on my part. It's more of a March item anyway as it was published on 24 March 2020 - I moved it to the March section above. These are the two reasons for why I wouldn't consider it worthy any long further discussion. (But I do hope that somebody else adds it.)

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 17:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Should we convert it into a table? This would have many advantages:

• Images would be next to their entries and not overflow to the next month's section (see previous section). This way we could add more images or even an image for every entry.
• Columns could be sortable and machine-readable. For instance there could be a column for the (main) field/s of research of an entry (such as "Astronomy"). Later versions of this page or separate websites could then make better use of this data and the table could be sorted. For instance people might want to view all entries for a specific field of research, a specific research topic or only a few major entries per month:
• Over time there could also be new columns such as:
  • some that help discern the significance of a new finding by some criteria (I'd suggest something along the lines of significance overall - not within research-field - by criteria of: useful / meaningful / popular, conclusive, new knowledge) and/or expert-ratings
  • a list of recurrent topics (similar to fields of research but e.g. "extraterrestrial life" and "Venus" for entry #3 of January)
  • type(s) of scientific endeavor such as "simulation", "projection", "scientific modelling", "empirical" ,/ "observation/data", "instrument-development", "product-development", ...
  • there could also be columns for the Universities / companies / researcher-teams / sponsors / countries of new discoveries/developments.
• (Putting things into columns might also allow shorter texts or a short and a long text for an entry, similar to how texts in the image captions are short (hence multiple length layers e.g. from very short and short at the list and the paper-abstract to mid at the news article and long at the full paper).)
• (There could also be different row colors or icons (maybe toggleable) for e.g. the different endeavor-types.)

---

Examples of how it could look like with some potential functionalities include List of largest exoplanets#The List and these tables of non-included items.

There are various problems with Wikipedia tables and a list / bullet-point layout may indeed be best but could get some new features like inline filterable tags (e.g. for scientific fields).

---

For example:

Date	Finding	Image	Research field	Topic	Lead by	Category
3 January	Astronomers report evidence that suggests that the planet Venus is currently volcanically active, and the residue from such activity may be a potential source of nutrients for possible microorganisms in the Venusian atmosphere, according to researchers.{refs}	A computer rendering of the roughly 8 km high Venusian volcano Maat Mons (vertical scale has been exaggerated)	Astronomy, Biology, Planetary science	Extraterrestrial life, Venus	Universities Space Research Association	1
24 January	For the first time, scientists discover mitochondria existing in human blood that are not part of larger cells.		Biology	Mitochondria, Discovery		1
27 January	Scientists from Michigan State University and Stanford University demonstrate a "Trojan horse" designer- nanoparticle that makes blood cells eat away – from the inside out – portions of atherosclerotic plaque that cause heart attacks		Biology Nanotechnology Medicine	Nanomedicine		1
28 January	A new study finds that many of Earth's biodiverse ecosystems are in danger of collapse. The study mapped over 100 high-risk ecosystems and habitats in specific locations, and noted the highly detrimental patterns in each one that result from climate change and local human activities.		Ecology	Ecosystems, Climate change, Earth system		1

Another example can be found at: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-29/Traffic report, it looks like this:

Rank	Article	Class	Views	Image	Notes/about
1	2019–20 coronavirus pandemic		7,645,103		Early 2020 bears the burden of a multinational pandemic caused by the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The page for the pandemic in particular is receiving so many views that WMFLabs' ever-useful Pageviews Anaylsis tool shows that all through this month there was never a day below 400k visitors... oh dear.
2	Coronavirus		2,749,576		The term 'Coronavirus' is a surprisingly broad one – it simply means any virus in a family which causes problems in mammals and birds. The Coronavirus family ranges from near-harmless common cold causers, to the one you see in the news – Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2--to the hulking (not literally), spree-slaying Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, which, in its 2012 outbreak, presented victims with a ~35% chance of dying. The Coronaviruses are so named because of their peculiar spikes, called peplomers, which create an illusion of a corona when viewed under an electron microscope.
3	Spanish flu		2,648,537		The Spanish flu was a flu pandemic that occurred from 1918 to 1920. One of the deadliest epidemics in recorded human history, the Spanish flu took place during a time when information was possibly being censored because of the war effort at the time. As for afterward, I don't know. All this censoring (which, by the way, was meant to keep morale up) left neutral country Spain as basically the only hard-hit country that took pains to accurately report infections – and so the pandemic was named after Spain (because countries thought Spain was the epicentre of the outbreak).

Probably improvements to the Wikimedia software / tables could also improve it further so that it's easier to read and better adjusts to screens (right now the columns on the right are cut off).

What do you think about converting this list and – if possible – all earlier ones into tables?

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 00:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC) (second table-example added: -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 14:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC))

That would make the list much longer and we would end up with a lot of empty space when an image is added. -- mfb ( talk) 04:47, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment and explaining what you wouldn't like about it. I don't think it would make the list much longer - it depends on how wide your screen is and how wide we make those table columns. But it wouldn't be much of a problem if the list becomes longer: it wouldn't be more text, just more scrolling. But scrolling shouldn't be a problem and limiting the width of the text this way actually makes it easier to read. This is also why most websites usually don't use the full width of the screen to display text. For empty space if an image is added we could simply try to aim to fill the available space of a table cell so that there's no empty space in the description-cell. But empty space shouldn't be a problem: that's simply the issue of scrolling.

I'll keep improving the table-example here. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 18:17, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

The main problem is that currently tables don't really have mobile support. They are basically unreadable on mobile. This needs to be resolved asap then it could be made a table if people here are okay with that then. Please comment if you know of a way to convert the list to a table without excluding people using mobile from being able to read the article.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 14:21, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggested MediaWiki software changes before converting the list to a table (tasks on phabricator)

As explained above and explained further in sections further down ( #Original page format better - or not? and #Sublists) there are some Wikimedia software issues that probably should be resolved before the list could get converted to a table. I have suggested these tasks at phabricator:

• Fix the display of tables on mobile (responsive web design: when the user taps on a table rotate the screen for a fullscreen view)
• Add "add table entry" and "edit row" for the source editor as well as "edit with VisualEditor" functions to tables for simplyifing editing tables
• Adding row categories/tags to tables that enable filtering displayed rows
• A way to have sections only load their data once a button has been clicked or when the section is scrolled into view

There may be some more relevant or necessary tasks. Imo the most important and only absolutely necessary one would be making tables properly viewable on mobile (#1 above).

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 20:30, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

What's going on with this article? Some months are referenced as "main article", and others are actually transcluded. Why are they not all transcluded? The reason I ask, beyond the obvious inconsistency, is that some references aren't working because they're not actually in defined in the transcluded sections. -- Mikeblas ( talk) 14:34, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

The article format has recently been changed after years of including all items for a year within a single article. For the discussion about it see section #Original page format better - or not? – if interested I recommend you read the shorter bullet points there.

Currently the latest 3 months are included here, while earlier months are split out to other articles per quarter. It would be inconsistent to not have a 3 month transitional period before splitting the content out because that would probably mean that sometimes there's three months of content while sometimes only one month.

Another reason for why content of multiple months is included here directly is because that better enables a period of adjusting and post-processing newly added entries. Furthermore, I only add items for the last month because that allows me to better assess items for eligibility / notability for the list and allows more news reporting that could provide important information about the item. This is unlike adding items as soon as they're being reported (as in "breaking news") which imo are a bit less encyclopedic than chronicling (science history) it after a period has passed. Additionally, readers of the article may not be interested in what has happened in the last month only and the page shouldn't make them ignore the months before to only read the latest month. Not having such a consistent transitional period would also be encouraging Wikipedia:RECENTISM.

I have seen the reference errors and could fix them soon. I still oppose splitting the content out to other articles instead of improving the (partly outdated and not very mobile-ready) MediaWiki software to enable a longer and more organized list (such as by filters and tags). Usually references of one month are not used for any other section of the article.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 15:15, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think I have much opinion about the formatting -- at the least, I'm not motivated enough to read a thick back-and-forth discussion about it. Whatever format is being considered, it seems like it must adequately accommodate verifiable referencing, which is a fundamental tenet of the encyclopedia. Your recent edit introduced these errors, so I hope you can take care of addressing them soon. -- Mikeblas ( talk) 19:26, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done and I agree with you on the referencing. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 20:49, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Following edit was reverted => *27 August – Researchers report that sufficient water to fill the oceans may have always been on the Earth since the beginning of the planet's formation. ^{[1] [2] [3]} - QUESTION: Worthy to Add (noted edit or related) or Not? - Comments Welcome - Thanks - Drbogdan ( talk) 12:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

If you're going to start a thread, common courtesy is to format it reasonably ( don't use excessive bolding or all caps or weird "=>" symbols meaning who-knows-what, use complete sentences, capitalize words appropriately, etc.). More importantly, if you have a case to make for inclusion, then make it. Don't just dump it here, ignoring my objections, and expect others to do so for you. Finally, I don't how many times you have to be told this, but press releases should not be used. – Deacon Vorbis ( carbon •  videos) 12:55, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinions (and unnecessary suggestions) - my position for inclusion is that the reverted edit is sufficiently cited in the responsible scientific literature (per WP:SCIRS) ^{[1] [2] [3]} to include in the article - others may (or may not) agree - the question posed above is in the spirit of collaboration (per WP:TEAMWORK, and not WP:OWN) - Thanks - Drbogdan ( talk) 14:20, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Deacon Vorbis in that "if you have a case to make for inclusion, then make it". I think in cases like this one should also list a few reasons for the notability/significance/relevance/appropriateness of the (specific) item for this article (when said is disputed/challenged/questioned). However, I'm for keep because as far as I can see no valid, significant reason for exclusion has been made either, and because, in short, the study seems to be quite notable, and one rationale for this can be found e.g. in one of the used references:

A new study finds that Earth's water may have come from materials that were present in the inner solar system at the time the planet formed—instead of far-reaching comets or asteroids delivering such water. [...] Prior to this study, "it was commonly assumed that these chondrites formed close to the sun," Piani said. "Enstatite chondrites were thus commonly considered 'dry,' and this frequently reasserted assumption has probably prevented any exhaustive analyses to be done for hydrogen."

If the content for the item is considered inappropriate or incomplete, please consider editing it. The study has the following conclusion, it's not a "useless" "may have"-item: "We show that EC meteorites contain sufficient hydrogen to have delivered to Earth at least three times the mass of water in its oceans".

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 15:46, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

The entry is going to stay. And that's the end of this debate. Wjfox2005 ( talk) 08:23, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Global Methane Budget 2017.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 18:44, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm interested (along with another user) in creating an article for meteorology in 2020, with a yearly overview such as number of worldwide tornadoes, or tropical cyclones, and weather records (such as national record high temperatures, or record flooding). I'm wondering if anyone watchlisting this could give some feedback. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk) 16:29, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I think it would be cool if you could do that! I'd add it to Template:Science year nav which I recently created and added to the article. It would replace the link to Tornadoes of 2020 there as this page could get linked to from "2020 in meteorology" or get (partially or entirely) transcluded in it.

The "Tornadoes of 2020" article only has a total count of tornadoes within the US and I don't know if it was possible for the page to have some kind of global count. The formats of statistics and tables would probably be useful there.

I also think that it would be good for such a page to have a section for meteorology-related research and development events. For this keeping track with and including some of the events aggregated here might be useful (of course there are also other possible aggregation source that also have some metainformation about the event/paper). Rarely, an item featured there should also be included in 2020 in science – I think this might possibly apply for the "the longest lightning bolt (700 km) and the "megaflash" with the longest duration" records featured here under 24 June. If the section's list there has a compatible format, the item would either be copied here or, imo preferably, be transcluded via row- or list-item- transclusion which is not yet possible with MediaWiki.

-- Prototyperspective ( talk) 17:09, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Having discussed it with Jason Rees ( talk · contribs), I made a draft for Draft:Weather of 2020. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk) 19:29, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

The draft looks good. When do you intend to move it to article space? It could still be edited afterwards and I think it would be good to move it to article space even in the case that no such article is created for 2021 (e.g. as a proof of concept article and for weather history). But I think it's an article series that will persist as it would be useful even if it included only the organized and integrated links to articles like Tornadoes of 2020 and likely to be longer than e.g. 1981 in the environment. I'd add it to Template:C21 year in topic and/or, as a subsection with a {{Main}}-link, to 2020 in the environment and environmental sciences. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 20:59, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Somebody made an adjustment recently and now the reference links don't work. Please fix ASAP. Wjfox2005 ( talk) 17:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this. I'll fix it. -- Prototyperspective ( talk) 17:44, 14 September 2020 (UTC)